British Land publishes Corporate Responsibility Report 2004 (UK)

British Landâs 2004 Corporate Responsibility Report, published today, records further progress in integrating CR into the day to day management of the business. Senior managers from all areas of the Companyâs operations have accepted responsibility for agreeing objectives and delivering on targets.

Independent stakeholder research has identified five specific focus areas for action:

Tenant engagement

Resource use

Regeneration

Biodiversity and

Sharing good practice

all of which are being addressed as the Report shows.

British Landâs CR programmes bring demonstrable business benefits to the Company, improving the Companyâs reputation with analysts, investors, lenders, employees, local communities and tenants, reducing risk and reducing costs by efficient management of resource
use.

Key features of the Report include the launch of the Sustainability Brief, a process that embeds sustainable design and construction in every British Land development; and working with the Carbon Trust to develop and implement a Carbon Management Programme for the multi-let property portfolio. This enables the Company to benchmark the energy performance of all multi-let buildingsâ common areas, set targets to reduce carbon emissions and, as a result, make cost savings.

In 2004, for the second year running, British Land was recognised as the Financial Sector World Leader in corporate responsibility issues by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. British Landâs Chief Executive, Stephen Hester, comments, âCorporate Responsibility goes to the heart of the control of our risks and thus British Landâs reputation, bearing upon the value which we are creating for our shareholders and other stakeholdersâ.

BL West companies
The British Land Company PLC has obtained 100% ownership of the BL West joint venture companies by buying for Â£50m shares owned by WestLB AG, Westdeutsche ImmobilienBank and Provinzial Rheinland Versicherung AG Die Versicherung der Sparkassen. The purchase was funded from British Landâs existing cash resources.

The BL West companies were established in September 2000 owning a portfolio of four City office properties with the intention of ending the venture in 2005. Two of these properties were sold in April 2004 and the remaining properties at 1 and 10 Fleet Place, Ludgate, EC4 are thus now owned by British Land.